Website Tells Kids How to Get Trans Hormones, Puberty Blockers Without Parental Consent

Website Tells Kids How to Get Trans Hormones, Puberty Blockers Without Parental Consent
(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)
Brad Jones
6/24/2022
Updated:
6/28/2022
0:00

A website geared toward teens and adults questioning their gender identity or who are transgender tells children as young as 13 how to get cross-sex hormones with—or without—parental consent.

Kelly Schenkoske, a concerned parent in California’s Monterey County, researched the TransgenderMap.com website after she discovered it by clicking on a series of links beginning with a Salinas High School webpage listed under LGBTQ Library Resources on the Salinas Union High School District (SUHSD) website.
The webpage displays several other links, including one to TransTeenProject.org where a keyword search for “hormones” will retrieve more links, one of which is “Obtaining Hormones and Anti-Androgens as a Minor: Overview.”
(Screenshot via Salinas Union High School District)
(Screenshot via Salinas Union High School District)

“The material is unbelievably shocking, and the public deserves to know what’s going on,” Schenkoske told The Epoch Times on June 22.

The site also informs teens “how to get hormones as a transgender minor.”

“Note: This page is for young people ages 13 and above,” it states near the bottom of the page.

“Even if you do not think you can start hormones yet, you should think about taking a hormone blocker to make your puberty stop. This is one of the most important things you can do at your age. Try to find a way if you can,” the website states.

Schenkoske said she objects to what she sees as blatantly advertising potentially life-altering medical products to children.

“This is incredibly reckless,“ she said. ”‘One of the most important things you can do at your age?’ I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me. What they’re doing to these kids is placing them in tremendous risk and potential danger. The way things are worded matters. The way this is communicated and presented is not balanced. It seems marketed.”

(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)
(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)
Many proponents of gender-affirming care claim that not providing care to affirm the self-chosen gender identities of children can lead to youth suicides, while opponents argue gender-affirming care and transgender medicine is part of the problem, not the solution.
“Affirming something that could harm someone is not compassion,” said Schenkoske.
A recent report by the Heritage Foundation found that youth suicide rates have risen higher in states that allowed minors easier access to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones compared to states that didn’t.

Meanwhile, the Transgender Map site suggests on one hand that teens who are unsure about their gender identity may want to consider delaying puberty with hormone blockers, but then warns teens they must be sure of their gender because these treatments could cause sterility.

“For young people who are sure they want to make a gender change, getting on hormone blockers and maybe hormones can help a lot. You need to be sure, though,” the website states. It warns: “Hormone blockers will stop your puberty. If you stop taking them, your puberty will start again. Hormones may change your body so you can not [sic] make children.”

A small disclaimer at the bottom of the page states: “This is medical talk, not medical advice,” and suggests that users do their own research.

Under the heading, “How to get them” the site suggests the easiest and safest option way for minors to get cross-sex hormones is by “coming out” to a parent or guardian.

“You will have to see a therapist and a doctor for a while before they let you take them,” the site states.

“I hope you will get hormones with help from loved ones and healthcare workers. You may have a hard time finding a healthcare worker who will help you without a parent or guardian who says it is OK.”

But then it states: “If you do not think your parent or guardian will help you, there are other ways.”
(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)
(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)

‘Other Ways’

Schenkoske said the website is contradictory because it points out actions that are illegal, but then seems to suggest “if you want to take this risk, here’s how.”

“It seems that this website acknowledges there are certain things that are against the law, and then proceeds to advise in those ‘other ways,’” she said.

One of these ways is for minors who to “come out” to a “a trusted friend or family member who is over 18” to help them obtain the hormones illegally.

“There is a chance they might tell your family, so think hard before talking to someone,” the site states.

“You can ask them to order what you want from an online pharmacy. Then you can pay them. They need to know this is probably against the law,” it states.

The site warns minors not to ask people they meet online—only adults they have already met in person.

Another suggestion is to simply ask a doctor.

“Though this is rare, some young people have been able to get this just by asking. Tell them you have a problem that you do not want to discuss with your family. If your doctor agrees not to tell, then ask about what you want. This may not work, but if you trust your doctor, you can try,” the site suggests.

“Another way,” according to the site, “is to start hormones from another source, and then tell your doctor that you do not want to take them without a doctor. Some doctors may help you to lower the chances of hurting yourself.”

The site also suggests legal options for minors, such as going to court to get legal emancipation from their parents.
“This is not easy to do, but an emancipated minor can make medical decisions without permission from their parents or guardians,” according to the site. “Some minors are able to demonstrate that they are mature enough to give informed consent for medical decisions. This mature minor doctrine can in some cases be used to get medical care without parental consent.”
(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)
(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)

Promoting Puberty Blockers

In a 1.5-minute video called Puberty and Transgender Youth on the site, the animated Amaze.org character, Jane, wonders what to name her pet goldfish because she doesn’t know its gender.

“A person who is transgender is someone whose internal sense of their gender—being a boy, girl or something else—doesn’t match their physical body. People who feel this way sometimes feel anxious when they begin to reach puberty and their bodies start to change in ways that don’t match their internal sense of their gender. These feelings are totally normal,” the cartoon narrator says.

“If you feel you want more time to explore how you feel about your gender before your body starts to change, it’s important to talk with a parent, counselor, therapist, or doctor about the feelings you have regarding your gender.”

In the clip, a girl who cuts her hair short is referred to an endocrinologist and injected with puberty blockers.

“Puberty blockers are medications that will stop your body from changing. They are usually given as injections or an implant. They block the production of hormones to stop or delay the physical changes of puberty. The effects of the medication are only temporary, so if a person stops using puberty blockers, their physical changes of puberty will begin again,” a narrator says in the video.

“Whether you identify as male, female or genderqueer, or something else, you’re perfectly normal and there are lots of ways to manage puberty so that it can be a fun, exciting time rather than a scary or stressful one,” it concludes.

As the cartoon ends, Jane looks at her goldfish and says, “OK. Maybe you need more time to get to know yourself first. Uhhh, I’ll just call you Bubbles for now.”

AMAZE has produced more than 200 videos and provides lesson plans for schools as well as “content and tools for parents and allies, integration into health care systems, and even a coloring book and comic,” according to another video on the AMAZE.org site.

(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)
(Screenshot via YouTube/AMAZE Org)

In the Courts

Harmeet Dhillon, a prominent civil rights attorney and CEO of the Center for American Liberty, has been an outspoken critic of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones being used on minors who identify as transgender, calling the practice “absolute child abuse.”
“Whoever is pushing off-label drug use in children causing PERMANENT sterility and stunted development should be behind bars, not in front of a classroom,” Dhillon posted on Twitter on June 22.
The Center for American Liberty is representing, Jessica Konen, and her minor daughter in a lawsuit that case that alleges staff at another school district in Monterey County manipulated her daughter into falsely believing she was transgender.
The lawsuit, filed on June 14, accuses the principal at Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, California, and two teachers who ran a lunch-hour LGBTQ club of “coaching” her daughter to think she was trans.
SUSD has not responded to multiple inquiries about the case nor the results of a third-party investigation involving school staff.

School Districts

SUSHD Superintendent Dan Burns said in an email to The Epoch Times on June 24 that the district “does not condone, advise or support students breaking the law,” and suggested that TransgenderMap.com is responsible for its own content.

SUSHD recognizes and celebrates Pride Month and provides “LGBTQ+ Resources” on its school webpages, he said.

The resource articles and links provide “valuable resources for students, staff and the greater community” and are readily available on the Internet for anyone to view and can be accessed with a simple search in any search engine, he said.

“Within an article, research paper, or periodical there may be links to other resources for which the SUHSD does not manage that content,” Burns said.

But Schenkoske maintains that school boards and districts should be held accountable for the content on any outside links they connect to their websites and “exercise extreme caution” to ensure they are safe for students, she said.

Though she and other parents have attended many school board meetings in the SUHSD and SUSD districts, Schenkoske said trustees and staff have been largely unresponsive to concerns raised about topics such as secret LGBT coaching in Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs, the graphic nature of content in the Comprehensive Sex Ed program, and the tenets of critical race theory braided into the ethnic studies curriculum.

“I get the impression the school board and district are absolutely promoting their agenda, regardless of what anyone else thinks,” Schenkoske said. And, the agenda, she claimed, is “social justice activism” and “Marxian ideas.”

Erin Friday, the mom of a teenage daughter who suffered from gender dysphoria, speaks at a hearing in Sacramento on June 21, 2022. (Screenshot via California State Assembly)
Erin Friday, the mom of a teenage daughter who suffered from gender dysphoria, speaks at a hearing in Sacramento on June 21, 2022. (Screenshot via California State Assembly)

In the Legislature

Erin Friday, a mom whose daughter suffered from Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria but has since desisted from transitioning, told the California Assembly health committee hearing on June 21 she opposes the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on minors under the auspices of so-called gender-affirming care.

“All of her doctors, therapists, and school counselors said that she would commit suicide if I did not affirm her. I ignored them. See, I had read all the suicide studies and I knew what they were saying was untrue. Today my daughter is happy in her unaltered female body,” Friday said.

Friday told the committee she has evidence of a California school counselor providing a high school student with advice on how to run away from his parents to LGBT housing. She denounced the notion of schools using outside links to promote the idea of child emancipation or instruct minors how to illegally obtain puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones “just in case those pesky parents won’t.”